PREACHER PENDER'S CONGREGATION
© 2002 James D. and Rebecca P. Pearce
Preacher Pender was the parson at the First Chinquapin Church of the Newly Risen and Re-Anointed Disciples of The Lord ~ out on the Brinkleyville Road.
He was a most impressive fellow on Sunday mornings.
Preacher Pender was a heavy-right-handed pulpit-thumping Bible-waving purveyor of The Gospel, with a gold tooth, who ~ with his eyes raised to The Light from the stained-glass windows, his long thick mane of gray-gold hair standing high, and his deep clear voice resonating from the rafters ~ out there near Brinkleyville ~ was capable of making a somewhat indelible impression on those who gathered on Sunday mornings to hear the enlightenment.
He really put it to his listeners.
He'd wave the Bible with his left hand, hit the pulpit lectern with his heavy right hand, and then point a long index finger at some cringing miscreant and shovel the fires of Hades toward both his victim and the whole wide-eyed crowd.
You might say he was capable of transfixing people.
Rosalee, a spinster lady who lived not more than 300 yards from the church, was one of the most transfixed and one of the most faithful attendees in his farm-country congregation.
And every Sunday, just as soon as the organist hammered the last notes of the Recessional, Rosalee would jump from her position in the pews and move rapidly toward the front door, to be the first in line to make a grand show of pumping his hand and hugging him, and congratulating him on his usual outstanding performance.
"You were really wonderful today, Preacher Pender," she would say. "Just wonderful.
"You really put it to them straight.
"You really told them about it today," she would say, quite loudly.
~~~
And then it snowed.
Preacher Pender's congregation ~ out near Brinkleyville ~ lived in a part of the country where it really didn't snow often.
But it was so placed, on the flats between the highlands to the west and the ocean to the east, that when it took a notion to snow, it really could snow. Sometimes two or three feet deep.
This time it was at least a two-footer. Hard to walk in.
On a Saturday night.
~~~
When Preacher Pender looked out the parsonage window over toward the church that Sunday morning, his first thought was, "Thank you, Lord, You are giving me a Day of Rest. Nobody's going to be able to get to the church house today."
But he had reckoned without Rosalee, who as we noted previously, lived only about 300 yards from the First Chinquapin Church.
While he was watching the snowy ground cover, with a few flakes still fluttering earthward, he noticed her ~ almost smothered in sweaters and using a big broom to beat her way toward the church.
"Oh, Lord," he said, "I'll have to go, too."
And he did. But he was a little irked.
~~~
Taking his accustomed place in the pulpit, he looked long and hard at the lone member of his congregation who had made it in that day, and he decided that the only decent thing he could do was to do as he always had done ~ give it everything he had.
And he really did.
He waved that big Bible with his left hand, he pounded the lectern with his heavy right, he raised his eyes to the stained glass, and he pointed that ever-accusatory index finger straight at Rosalee.
He put it out there loud and clear, and Rosalee hung on every word.
~~~
There was no organist this day, and no Recessional, but when Preacher Pender finally quit and made for the front door, Rosalee was there to greet him.
She gave him a big hug, and she pumped his right hand in spasms of joy.
"You were really wonderful today, Preacher Pender," she said.
"Just wonderful.
"You really put it straight.
"You really would've told them about it today," she said, quite loudly.
"If they had've been here."
~~~~~~~~~
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